An eve-of-launch update on what is now known about IBM’s Silverlake launch tomorrow shows that the details we gave in April were almost completely accurate (CI No 915): it is now thought that there will indeed four AS 400 models – B30, B40, B50 and B60, and two AS 200 models, B10 and B20. The name of the operating system appears to have been changed from XPF to OS/400, but, more importantly, the machine will run System 38 CPF code in an emulation mode separate from the AS native mode. CPF users will not need to recompile their applications, but users of SSP from System 36 will have to recompile them. Those who have tried say that their workloads run on the new machines with no snags. The memory sizes are as we suggested except that the B20 is expected to go to 16Mb rather than 12Mb. The two processors are called the 9404 and 9406 – we had 9384 and 9386 but that would of course imply that the new machines were still System 38s, whereas if IBM had continued the old family nomenclature they would have been System 40. On price-performance, the only word so far is that the top-end model 60 will offer about 25% to 30% better price-performance than the System 38 Model 700 – performance will be 50% better but it will be priced higher. Within the line, the B20 will be 60% faster than the B10; the B60 will be four times the B30, the B50 2.3 times and the B40 1.5 times. Disk storage is said to go to a maximum of 27Gb. Volume deliveries are seen for September. On numbers, Wall Streeters look for IBM to ship 7,500 by December 31.
